Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone: Purple Lipstick

A little while ago I discovered purple lipstick. Yes, purple.
I’d always liked my berry shades but I’d always steered clear of going as far as a full on purple so I was surprised at how wearable some purple shades were and how much it actually suited me! I wanted to share my new found love of purple lippie with you lovely lot so out came this post.

I’ve separated out department store brands from highstreet (US “drugstore”) brands so that if you wanted to try a purple yourself you can more easily find one to suit you as a lot of my more expensive purples are limited editions or now discontinued as I got them in sales.

This is my collection of purple lipsticks. I’ve picked up quite a few since that first, fateful encounter with purple. Some good, some not so good, some down right bad!

Department Store

Drugstore

The most recent addition I have here is ‘Big Shot’ by Sleek which regular readers will remember me reviewing as part of their summer 2016 Whimsical Wonderland collection a few weeks ago.

Here are the swatches! Only three from the first set are currently still available as is; Smashbox ‘Violet Riot’, Illamasqua ‘Shard’ & MAC ‘Up the Amp’. Urban Decay still do ‘Bittersweet’ in their new Vice lipsticks but the formula is different than that swatched here so it may not be identical.

All of these high street shades are widely available at the moment with the exception of the Models Own which is still in some Superdrug stores but is slowly disappearing as it has been discontinued. It’s not a formula I would recommend though to be honest as it’s supposed to be semi-matte but it sweats glycerine (or something similarly clear and goopy) and actually has quite a shine, mine will be heading in the round file quite soon I think! I do hope their new lippies are better when they make it into the shops. I wanted to include it though as it’s the only red-purple I have from the high-street! The NYX shade ‘Power’ which is very blue-grey purple shade is not in the line up picture as I have it de-potted into a palette.

Tips For Wearing A Purple Lip

Wearing ‘Up The Amp’ by MAC

Of course, there are no rules in make-up no matter what anyone tells you, however, as a starting point when trying out a new shade working from your skin’s undertone is usually a good idea.
If you have warm undertones in your skin, try a purple that has warm reddish tones. If you have cool undertones, try out a purple with bluish tones in it. If you’re lucky enough to be neutral toned you can choose any shade you like the look of but you might need to be aware of any cool or warm tones in your chosen foundation (a truly neutral foundation is very rare!)

If you’ve gone for a bright shade, try making it the focus point of your look by going more natural elsewhere. If you must have colour try a simple coloured eye liner as I did in my look shown above.

Matching up your blush and finding a matching lip liner can be a bit of a ‘mare and you do have to venture into the department store for this, at least in the UK.
Urban Decay do a purple blush called, unsurprisingly, ‘Bittersweet’ to match their original purple lip shade and since bringing out their new Vice lip range have brought out more lippies and two lip liners called ‘Bittersweet’ and ‘Pandemonium’ some of which are on my shopping list! Smashbox do a lipliner called ‘Violet’ and MAC do more different lipsticks including some much deeper and bluer purples and do a lip liner named ‘Magenta’ which works very well with ‘Up the Amp’ and also produce a couple of different plum-pink blushes in their standard range, even Clinique are getting in on the purple blush action with their offering ‘Pansy Pop’ from the cheek pop range. Professional brands like Ben Nye do some really lovely dark purple blushes too if you really want to go for it!
Over on the highstreet in the you’re really only looking at Sleek who currently have a limited edition purple gel blush, again in the Whimsical Wonderland collection. I haven’t found a single purple lip liner on the UK highstreet as yet – sorry! I did find eye liners from MUA and Makeup Revolution that I’m pretty sure could stand up to dual usage though. If you know of any other options do post them in the comments for others to share.

Do you wear purples? What have you tried recently that’s been out of your comfort zone and ended up falling in love with?

I'm Kath; a qualified beauty therapist and make-up artist. I'm currently studying media make-up and special effects to add some more strings to my bow. I'm a "make-up geek" as my friends say and am also a bit obsessed with nail polish too! I use this site to share my love of make-up and beauty and skin care education.
I'm also a bendy-EDSer and a wheelchair user.
Portfolio website coming soon!
bendybeauty.com